Zanzibar: Stone Town

Zanzibar has been a standout destination for Alanna and I ever since we began our Africa research. The name alone conjures an old-world exoticism shared with the likes of Timbuktu and Casablanca. These are places about which I know nothing, but prior to the trip Zanzibar seemed to be a member of the same club, and evoked the same vague ideas of coastal African decadence (incense, steamer trunks, monkeys with hats, et cetera). I still haven't a clue about the other two (they may well not even exist anymore!) but at least we've got Zanzibar pegged.


The tropical island, part of an archipelago of the same name, is as historical as it gets – it's been a major player in intercontinental trade routes since the first century and Stone Town, the island's largest and most famous settlement, has been a town for about as long as people have been naming things 'towns'. At various points in its history the island has belonged to Persian and Arab traders, Omani sultans, the Portuguese, and the British, who controlled the island under a protectorate until it unified with newly-independent Tanzania in 1964. Zanzibar is a significant world supplier of spices, most notably cloves, and is famous for its carved doors and implausibly beautiful beaches.

Door!

More doors! The brass studs are to deter war elephants, obviously.

Zanzibar operates partly as an independent state – I'm not sure how it works but we had to pass through customs upon arrival after a four-hour ferry ride from Dar Es Salaam. We spent the trip cooped in a comfy VIP section (VIP-ness and caucasian-ness being synonymous, apparently) while Muslim prayers played a little too loudly on small TVs. The 'MV Flying Horse' docked in the harbour next to a huge pile of shipping containers, an introduction that didn't exactly scream either 'old-world' nor 'exoticism'. After entry formalities we rapidly became best friends with a middleaged tout who was more than willing to lead us to our hotel. Assuming he'd demand payment for his services we were apprehensive, but another man in the crowd yelled, “you can follow this man, he will not ask you for money!” so off we went. Our impromptu guide hurried us into the narrow maze of streets, all the while providing us with a detailed itinerary of the Zanzibar spice tour (the long-winded explanation of the Zanzibar spice tour is an area of expertise of all touts, we would soon learn). The info was nice and all, but he kept our attention to a point that, once reaching the hotel, we had no recollection of how we got there.


For me, Stone Town was beyond disorienting. The map in our guidebook resembles a bunch of carefully arranged shards of broken glass. It took us a few tries to figure our way back to the ferry dock, where the street was wider and we could find our way to the more touristy shops. Stone Town has what I've heard described as a 'tourist ghetto,' a sterile, compact district of air-conditioned souvenir stores and restaurants seldom visited by any local who's not a security guard, a taxi driver or one of Zanzibar's merciless touts. But Stone Town's tourism setup is such that this was virtually the only place we could find to eat – possibly because if any restaurant opened in more stimulating surrounds, no one would be able to find it.

The view from our hotel's rooftop terrace.

Drinking coconut from a vendor. First he hacks off the top with a knife and hands it to you with a straw. Once you're finished you hand it back and he expertly scrapes all the meat out of the inside and gives it back to you. It's different from coconuts at home, the meat is soft and gelatinous.

common sights: texting, unrefrigerated meat.

Stone town is noted for its unique mix of Arabic, Persian and Swahili architecture, which all seem to be variations on large dim multi-storey buildings with few windows. Often, if it weren't for the many storefronts at ground level, exploring the deeper reaches of Stone Town would feel like walking a narrow alley between two old prisons. It's only once you get above the buildings, or manage a peek into an open door, that you realize that most have courtyards, and the balconies and windows face inwards. The shops themselves – when they aren't a row of needy curio vendors – are suitably old-fashioned: closet-sized convenience stores, woodworkers' shops, and tailors seated at antique Singer sewing machines.

One of the dozens of curio vendors, all hawking the same stuff we've been seeing since Zambia.

A definite highlight – and the one instance where we were able to participate in something not reserved for tourists – were the meals at Forodhani Gardens. Every night at sundown the harbour-side park converts into a street-food market, where forty or so tables sell variations on a few themes: chapati rolled with egg, skewers of fruit, and, most popularly, barbequed seafood. The men behind the tables are all polished salesmen, assuring you of the freshness of the day's catch and the dedication and integrity of that table's respective team of fishermen.


The spreads at some of the seafood tables are astounding: lobster, shrimp, octopus, calamari, and often five or six kinds of fish including marlin, swordfish and shark. As with the rest of Africa's fishing industry, it does make one a little worried at the amount of seafood left in the sea. All is precooked – your selection is reheated over a grill and served with sauce and salad over your choice of flatbread, all for about three bucks.


Cane juice was something that Alanna discovered in Dar Es Salaam, and is a most refreshing and perfectly-balanced beverage. The long cucumber-width cane is pressed mechanically with a few key limes and a shard of ginger and sieved straight into your glass, a large beer-mug's worth for about fifty cents.


Our other activity of note in Stone Town was the world-famous spice tour, which was half fascinating, half making fun of a high-maintenance family of Americans. Instead of visiting a true spice plantation, our guide walked us through a demonstration forest, showing us a plethora of spices in their living form, peeling bark and crushing leaves for us to smell and taste. Never have my fingers been more aromatic! Not surprisingly, most spices look pretty boring when still in the ground.

vanilla!

peppercorns

nutmeg

After a visit to some very dull Persian ruins we were served a delicious lunch, cooked by some local women and incorporating many of the spices we'd just seen. To cap the day off we were to visit a beach – Alanna and mine's first saltwater since South Africa and our first Zanzibar Shore Experience. Well, after a long backroad drive we emerged onto possibly the filthiest, most unswimmable, least appealing stretch of sand on the island. Alanna and I, being the easygoing, non-complaining type, would have probably plunked ourselves on a maggoty log and sat there for the allotted hour, but luckily a talkative older woman in our group demanded to be taken to a better beach. Our driver obliged, and we were bussed to a more suitable spot. The new beach was divided down the center, split between an upmarket resort and a crowded fishing village. On your left, people are using the beach as a surface on which to sun themselves and nibble tapas, on your right people are using the beach to stay alive.

dirty beach

In flowery guidebook introductions the world over, Stone Town is unanimously exalted for its magical, time-capsule quality. Possibly the victims of lofty expectations, we found this to be a little exaggerated. Yes, it's a spectacular place – one does get the impression that life has been rolling along without much variance for centuries, and the carved doors are indeed the handsomest things on hinges, but at the end of the day a narrow stone street is just a narrow stone street. (But what was I expecting? Dancing girls with bells on their toes? Cardamom tossed from the rooftops?) I'll admit that the robed, soccer-playing children and noble old men congregating at the mosques did make one reflect on one's modernity (and, come to think of it, one's exposed ankles). In the end, with all it's become, we felt it was difficult to access what makes Stone Town so special. There's a funny paradox to traveling: the places attempting to cater to tourists are always the places we don't want to be. Imagining Stone Town fifty years ago, we probably would have enjoyed it a little more, when the hassle involved would simply have been the challenge of getting by in a culture different from one's own – for us at least, a much more appealing option.